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I had an epiphany when I discovered how good exercise makes me feel. This led to my wanting to eat healthily, get enough sleep etc. These things have become non-negotiable habits, just like brushing my teeth. Of course there are temptations and that is where habit trumps motivation every single time. And sometimes I will have a lapse of something.

For me the key is not to treat a lapse as a sign of failure. That leads to the thought that there is no point in carrying on because I will only keep failing. If I, for example, have a binge of wine one evening I will just carry on with the plan the next day. I will try not to punish myself by eating fewer calories to "make up" for the extra empty calories I consumed with the wine. I will try to accept that mistakes happen. It's not always easy to forgive ourselves when we trip up. I think that is probably because we never got taught to deal with mistakes in a healthy way.

Another thing I find helpful is to try to find healthy things that I can regard as treats.

This is so refreshing and is exactly what I learned so long ago when dealing with my own compulsive eating especially the "carry on and don't punish through deprivation".

I love your healthy treats.

I have toned it down over the years.

When I get on a good roll I love exercise, feeling great, and especially the shame free mornings when I'm on a roll of self care.

I also know that every time I've been down or lacking motivation it comes back again eventually if I don't rush it and get impatient.

Thanks this has been wonderfully helpful I appreciate you all with a nod or a smile or a hug

I couldn't count how often I've heard these things but for some reason the way she talked about it broke through. It wasn't "oh you just need to exercise and eat healthy" it was "this is step 1 to heal" it somehow shifted it from feeling like something someone is telling you to do and more to something that you owe yourself toward recovery. And I spend all this energy on therapy and stuff but had not prioritized those things. Once I saw them not as a magic bullet but as a building block...

Oh! I am able to see that perspective and it's non-punitive! Thank you!

Over-thinking it all can also keep us tethered to the old story, forever waiting for the magic leap forward.

your fresh outlook into the new space which has opened for you (and which you have created).

Woodsgnome thank you! I'm overthinking, trying to get it right (perfectionism) and acting like there's a timetable. Thank you for your insights. Self acceptance is the only non negotiable.

Good morning!

I'm wondering if anyone had some thoughts to share on ways your routine shifted as you realized recovery.

I recently switched therapists to someone who works with trauma response.

All the self care steps I had been making sort of went out the window this summer.

Specifically, I had made a lot of progress on not drinking at home or in front of my kids and keeping alcohol to a celebratory thing rather than an every day thing.

Over the past two years, I had some periods where I was both exercising and not drinking!

The realization that I developed C-PTSD in my childhood threw me for such a loop. 

My pattern is to work to serve my state (state employee) and serve my family and then to leave myself feeling tired, crappy, and resentful.  I then seem to have good reason that I haven't exercised.  It feels short term good to have a beer or two.  I'm not getting drunk in a way that would cause damage to others, I'm just allowing the substance to soothe me.

Over the summer I had a condition causing a lot of pain, and this realization about the C-PTSD. My therapist of 15 years I'm transitioning away from (she was retiring in 1.5 years anyway) and working with someone new, to do EMDR, etc.

I absolutely used it as an excuse to hang onto my substances and let them soothe me as I kept my life together even as I felt like I was falling apart inside.

I think I am wanting some grieving or soothing because this is always the case= me holding it together for work/family etc.

Did you experience any useful shifts in your thinking that helped you truly find a move forward to "putting on your own mask first" as they say on the airplane?

I'm new at this and wonder how to put myself first.

I have a few days away from family.  I can get an hour of walking in today.  I'm committing to not drinking today. 

I feel like it's a good chance for a reset but the important thing is saying it's not punitive, it's for me, for me to feel better!

Tips please experience please advice welcome 

Hi KJOHNS105,

You're not alone. Sadly, although we all have our own histories, most of us can identify with your feelings. I struggled with depression and anxiety and a host of other things for decades. I saw countless psychiatrists and therapists, took lots of different medications (none helped), and not one of them ever asked about my homelife or mentioned PTSD. I found this forum just this week, and everything is only just now starting to make sense.

Ditto it's like wearing a new pair of glasses - everything is crystal clear! (For better or for worse.)

I'm really sorry for your pain over the situation with your last relationship.  It's hard to live in regret while dealing with all the other symptoms you've been experiencing.

Take care.

Just want to say thanks for summing this up so nicely.  I really resonate with this situation/description.

In my case I find myself doing what I call war-gaming. I start planning what to do or say in every possible scenario. It takes up an inordinate amount of time and emotional energy as I imagine ever greater and more bizarre trains of occurrences. I'm still working on this with my therapist.

So far we have come to the conclusion that it is probably borne of having an unpredictable mother. Most of the time I would know what might set off a rage attack so I could do everything in my power to avoid it. Which wasn't a lot, as a child, if she became furious when she had to run an errand because I needed new shoes or had to take me to the dentist. But more minor examples would be if a friend broke or damaged something. I would get into a total panic that mother would be furious and then the friend would be terrified too. And then we'd pluck up the courage to confess and my mother would be simply charming about it and say 'accidents happen' or similar. And then I may, or may not, get into trouble after the friend had gone. My hyper vigilance to her emotional state meant that the less brain space I could allocate to dealing with a situation on the fly, the better. I war-gamed to have explanations or reactions planned in advance so I could play my part well and deflect impending rage. It was a coping mechanism that may have served me well then but does not serve me well now. I need to bear in mind that I am now an adult, with agency, and am perfectly capable of reacting to any given situation appropriately and sensibly.

If I catch myself having a reaction that my logical brain thinks is inappropriate or excessive then I take it as a clue to something that should be looked at. I've worried about telling things to my therapist. The unpacking of some of that has been along the lines of:

I was forbidden to talk about family matters to outsiders. The consequence of doing so would be rage and retribution from mother if she found out. But she also told us that outsiders would use all information against us so it was not just traitorous, but also dangerous, to tell them anything. Double fear: of them and of mother.

Talking to my therapist involves talking about private family matters. The prospect of that easily puts me back into a childhood emotional reaction of terror. My adult logical brain tells me that the therapist will not tell my mother. There is no way she can find out. Even if she does find out I, as an adult, can withstand her rage. Or go NC. I can protect myself now. My emotional brain has trouble realising that. So I am scared of talking to my therapist. But I do. Every time I tell her a 'secret' and the sky does not actually fall I am building new neural pathways. Eventually I hope my knee-jerk emotional reaction will have been re-trained a little because I now know what the result of talking to an outsider is. And it is not as my mother said it would be.

I don't know if that helps at all, storyworld, but I feel "should" is a loaded word. If you feel a "should" or "should not" I think it deserves further examination. Logical brain can say "just forget about it" all it likes, but emotional brain may not be prepared to comply.

I cannot say enough about Michael Sealey's videos on Youtube.  They involve hypnosis. Through his supportive talk downs, I lost my fear of insomnia. I had pretty bad insomnia after my kids were born. I've learned the skill of relaxing to his voice.  Sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes in the middle of the night, curled around a pillow.  Hope that helps. It doesn't calm hypervigilance but it did create for me the relaxation I needed to be able to sleep. Now I can go into safety mode with 30 minutes, my headphones, and his voice.  I especially like the "Calm" videos.

Kizzie, thanks for the welcome.

Moondance, glad to warm your heart.

Towhee, I am so thankful I did not meet resistance from my therapist.

str_grl, boundaries... how do they work?  I've never had them. 

gcj07a Thank you I will get those books!  My mom has some things for sure (anorexia) but not BPD. Sorry you dealt /are dealing with that.

It took a long time to respond.  I really have to dip in and out of this discussion generally.

Same thing with the books - I can only read "What My Bones Know" on audio when I'm walking... it's too disturbing to take in while I'm not moving.

It's worthwhile to protect my peace.  Thank you for having me.

Hi there everyone.

I'm new here.

I don't have a diagnosis.

My therapist, who I've been seeing since 2008, asked me why don't I just say NO to my mother?

I struggled with this. I turned it over in my mind. I realized no one ever said no to her.

That's when it hit me - it's a family system. Everyone's upholding the values. These values almost killed me.

I got my hands on "Rejected Shamed and Blamed" book and learned about the fawn response and felt like I had an answer for my therapist.

I'm really glad to say that when I brought my homework to my therapist she immediately replied, "You think you're having a trauma response to your mother. That's not good. I'm not trained for that work but we can get you transitioned to someone who does that kind of work."  (She's retiring in 2 years anyway and can stick with me the whole time.)

Have I reached out to the new therapist? I have not. I'm just sitting in the middle of my life looking around and seeing things in a very new light.

For the first time I feel a bit of kindness to myself.

The screaming mess that was my head was a really scary place to be.

I have done a lot of things in survival mode and have been so negative and down on myself.

Now I realize that letting my mom re-traumatize me over and over has contributed to me feeling like * about myself.
I said no (in a letter) and established a boundary and consequences.

Here's to new life!